A middle-aged man dying of heart failure consents to an experimental artificial heart. The post-op course was stormy with no improvement. His wish was to die at home, so he was discharged. At the funeral, his wife presented the doctors with a lawsuit, saying “You buried my husband without his heart.” The doctors found his heart, put it back in his chest, and the lawsuit vanished. This case had a profound effect on the author’s thinking and conduct as a physician cardiologist. Dr. Weiss realized doctors focused on the heart as a pump, rather than the symbolic heart and what it represents. This book surveys how a host of ancient cultures, religions, and civilizations envisioned the homo sapiens heart before the advent of modern medicine, and how that understanding will preserve our species.

In a chest of drawers bequeathed by his grandmother, author Randal Keynes discovered the writing case of Charles and Emma Darwin’s beloved daughter Annie Darwin, who died at the age of ten. He also found the notes Darwin kept throughout Annie's illness, the eulogy he delivered at her funeral—and provocative new insights into Darwin’s views on nature, evolution, and the human condition. In Darwin, His Daughter & Human Evolution, Keynes shows that Darwin was not "a cold intellect with no place for love in his famous 'struggle for existence,' [but]...a man of uncommon warmth" (Scientific American). Creation: The True Story of Charles Darwin is now a major motion picture and the movie tie-in paperback is also available from Riverhead Books.

Darwin has long been hailed as forefather to behavioural science, especially nowadays, with the growing popularity of evolutionary psychologies. Yet, until now, his contribution to the field of psychology has been somewhat understated. This is the first book ever to examine the riches of what Darwin himself wrote about psychological matters. It unearths a Darwin new to contemporary science, whose first concern is the agency of organisms — from which he derives both his psychology, and his theory of evolution. A deep reading of Darwin's writings on climbing plants and babies, blushing and bower-birds, worms and facial movements, shows that, for Darwin, evolution does not explain everything about human action. Group-life and culture are also keys, whether we discuss the dynamics of conscience or the dramas of desire. Thus his treatment of facial actions sets out from the anatomy and physiology of human facial movements, and shows how these gain meanings through their recognition by others. A discussion of blushing extends his theory to the way reading others' expressions rebounds on ourselves — I care about how I think you read me. This dynamic proves central to how Darwin understands sexual desire, the production of conscience and of social standards through group dynamics, and the role of culture in human agency. Presenting a new Darwin to science, and showing how widely Darwin's understanding of evolution and agency has been misunderstood and misrepresented in biology and the social sciences, this important new book lights a new way forward for those who want to build psychology on the foundation of evolutionary biology

Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. Nearly 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities. Challenges about teaching the theory of evolution in schools occur annually all over the country. This same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part in his marriage: his wife, Emma, was quite religious, and her faith gave Charles a lot to think about as he worked on a theory that continues to spark intense debates. Deborah Heiligman's new biography of Charles Darwin is a thought-provoking account of the man behind evolutionary theory: how his personal life affected his work and vice versa. The end result is an engaging exploration of history, science, and religion for young readers. Charles and Emma is a 2009 National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature.

A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race “A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs. Randall Fuller takes us back to one of those turning points, in 1860, with the story of the influence of Charles Darwin’s just-published On the Origin of Species on five American intellectuals, including Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, the child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace, and the abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. Each of these figures seized on the book’s assertion of a common ancestry for all creatures as a powerful argument against slavery, one that helped provide scientific credibility to the cause of abolition. Darwin’s depiction of constant struggle and endless competition described America on the brink of civil war. But some had difficulty aligning the new theory to their religious convictions and their faith in a higher power. Thoreau, perhaps the most profoundly affected all, absorbed Darwin’s views into his mysterious final work on species migration and the interconnectedness of all living things. Creating a rich tableau of nineteenth-century American intellectual culture, as well as providing a fascinating biography of perhaps the single most important idea of that time, The Book That Changed America is also an account of issues and concerns still with us today, including racism and the enduring conflict between science and religion.

Throughout the 19th century in the British Empire, parallel developments in science and the law were squeezing Aborigines everywhere into nonexistence. Charles Darwin took part in this. Again and again, he expressed his approval of the extermination of the native lower races. The more interesting part of the story is that there were plenty of voices, albeit a minority and mostly forgotten now, who objected on humanitarian grounds (and sometimes scientific grounds as well). Europeans, they said, were becoming polished savages and dehumanizing the Other. Darwin was very aware of this criticism and cared not one whit. As he said in a letter to Charles Lyell, I care not much whether we are looked at as mere savages in a remotely distant future. But he well knew it was not a remote future. He had read several writers who accused Europeans of being the real savages. For a brief moment in his youth in his Diary, he himself dabbled in such criticism, even though he already believed in the inferiority of indigenous peoples. That belief grew firmer as he matured. Darwin did not dispute humanitarians so much as he ignored them. Its a sad story. But oh those humanitarians, how they inspire.

At a time unparalleled in history, humanity faces a threat of universal nuclear doomsday with an end result of total annihilation of life on earth. Being an enthusiast for global peace, with an extensive research background, Yousuf Gabriel explores the root cause of the nuclear problem. Probing deep into the realms of theology, philosophy, atomism, nuclear science, literature, and history, amid a mist of mystification regarding universal nuclear dilemma, Gabriel has tried to resolve the issue in the light of the Scriptures. He is a philanthropist who warns humanity about nuclear hell and wants to shun the two-edged sword of nuclear energy, either for war or so-called peaceful purpose. Gabriels Extinguishing the Atomic Hell Series serves as the key to the future destiny of this now-doomed humankind. It is a case of dwindled religion and diminished faith versus science. It is based on a miraculous prophecy, rather a warning about nuclear hell given by the Quran more than fourteen centuries ago. The prophecy has described the characteristics of the age in which atomism was supposed to appear, as well as of the people who would become the victims of nuclear fire. It has also given the remedial measures and solutions to avoid this nuclear doomsday. The whole nuclear phenomena, with all its characteristic scientific features, is described in its entirety by this prophecy of the Holy Quran. The major focus of criticism is the philosophy of Francis Bacon, who preferred natural philosophy over moral philosophy for mans right of dominion over nature for the material utility. Educate yourself about the dreadful outcome of adopting nuclear energy, whether for war or peaceful purposes. Learn how, after a prolonged use of nuclear energy, human and animal species may be converted to abhorrent monsters and chimeras. Enlighten yourself in the light of Scriptures how humanity can avoid this shameful and dreadful end. KHALID MALIK